Communication

Why Bose is not the scientist after whom Higgs is named.

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A very few particles (out of 1000s) are named after scientists, eg the so called mu meson was called a Yukawa Meson, although it turned out to be a misnomer. Mu-meson was found to be a lepton, rather than a meson, as was thought by Yukawa and others.

Now called Muon it belongs in the same class that an electron belongs to, leptons, which are both Fermions. Hence initially thought to be a Boson (because all mesons would be bosons) the muon is actually a Fermion (all leptons are Fermions).

Should we say; initially muon was named after Bose, then correctly; after Fermi? That would be HOKUM. Right thing would be to say; it was named after Hideki Yukawa (wrongly as a meson or boson) then it has been named as muon which is now a Fermion. But its still named after Yukawa; given to a misnomer-correction. It can be called Yukawa-Lepton MUON (instead of Yukawa Meson Mu).

Nowhere Bose or Fermi have been the scientists after whom this particle has been named. Bose and Fermi are scientists after whom a principle of physics or nature has been named but not a particle. That would clear any mischievous air.

What is it like to be in an Ivy League. Just a musing.

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The other aspect is from my own experience, while you are highly qualified, you are perhaps no more pouring in as much as even you would like to pour in, in terms of real research. You or your employers don’t want you to go into controversies, because they drain you out of wit and the employer runs into razor sharp issues. The Ivy Leagues have the “requisite infrastructure” which is cutting edge in a way preconceived notion kind of way. It really does not open the actual researchers to the issues involved in fundamental thinking. And sooner or later we all the highly intellectual kind belong to a level where we see our wit’s end. It takes the highly competitive experience of figuring out what exactly the Ivy League want from you for you and them to be successful lest which they are subjected to competitive and often no so harmless scrutiny from even tiny rats.

Ideas that changed our notion about the Universe.

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1. Aristotle Fallacy; A notion that objects need force for their movement. It contradicts the idea of inertia. Newton corrected this by introducing the first law, things continue in their state of motion, a quality called as inertia, without requiring force and the motion changes due to application of force.

2. Earth is flat; that there is a boundary where you fall off its edge. [I am not going to explain or tell you how and when we found this was a horrendously hilarious and misleading notion we had. But it might have been used in the past by parents to discipline their teen-age kids. Don’t go out, you will fall off earth. That would have kept them in check.]

3. Rotational Dynamics; Earth is accelerating in a near circle in addition to about itself, so additional forces are acting that changes our observation about the world. Newton tried to understand this (not successful) in his last days, by rotating a bucket full of water, his laws could not explain the effects observed. His laws needed to be modified slightly. The same thing makes objects feel weightless by a given amount if they are accelerating towards a gravitational field (eg merry go round, satellites) This is the basis of many works of Einstein. First came Mach’s Principle which says observations made from objects that are accelerating in circular paths are to be corrected by fixing frames of references to stars that are so far away that the rotational motion is neglected. [if you shake your head while looking at stars and shake your head by looking at nearby objects such as a light post, evidently the light post shakes more and the stars less]. This helps in correcting observed phenomena from earth. Earth moves at 30 kms/second wrt sun …

Review of Gravity, the movie, discussions.

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A discussion on Space movie Gravity, which I saw recently.

I remember one fact, that concerns, Physics, the roughly 50000 miles an hour (correct?) speed of ISS level debris that was coming, it set me thinking, are they violating the Relativistic Laws? For a while, and then I realize its per hour, not second, (that later would be grossly incorrect, 50 K miles / sec would violate Relativity certainly) that comes out to be 20 km/sec and thats perfectly enough close to what sort of speed, earth, moon, any satellite are typically found with, in our Sun’s Gravity. (in free fall) Even Rocket’s launching requires escape velocity. 11.2 km/sec. So they have clearly done their research on the Physics, as far as I could get in that moment.

Why human eyes are sensitive to only visible light?

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“Why Human Eyes Are Sensitive To Only Visible Light”. These processes are arbitrary, which is somewhat more technically referred as “contingency”. Its not just for the case of vision that this arbitrariness is present, but all forms of biological properties. eg A conch shell is spiral in a certain way and this is only specific to the snail-likes. Fur is different for different animals. Arms and limbs are different for different animals. This is because of such arbitrariness which are present in 100s of different ways depending on exactly how a life form develops. ( — We are all describing this on general terms, here in this discussion).

Technically, adaptation has to do with exposure. One has to be exposed to the kind of situation one is borne in. Human beings are not borne deep down, on the ocean bed, but on ground with optimum temperature and other life conditions. So, there has to be optimal amount of heat present. Human Beings can’t survive huge temperatures. But many animals can, so they are exposed more harshly to Infra Red (IR) etc. Its the whole body which evolves and then different parts might evolve differently. [w.r.t. different thermodynamic and other life defining conditions]

Just a wild guess: may be some animals were borne [created by contingent chances] very close to volcanic eruption, eg snakes, which is why they could be sensitive to IR type of vision. etc etc. On planet earth, optical light comes only from Sun, (in its profusion, can turn off the sun during night or moon some nights and its total darkness). This sun-light in optical radiation window is extremely intense in visible spectrum but with IR spectrum its intense only during summer. This intensity going from one place on planet earth to another can vary between say 10% – 60% during a year. That means the likelihood of birth can be reduced by that factor towards IR exposure, if it were to come from sun but not from volcanoes. The actual condition on earth might …